Sunday, December 23, 2012

99 and 44/100% Dead (1974)

On paper, this action
thriller about a hit man drawn into a web of underworld intrigue is completely
pedestrian—the story features standard tropes like an antihero rescuing his
innocent girlfriend from a fellow hit man in the employ of a mobster whom the
antihero has alienated. However, simply describing the plot of 99 and 44/100% Dead doesn’t account for
the batshit-crazy storytelling style that director John Frankenheimer uses from
start to finish, or the surreal nature of the picture’s awkward attempts at
black comedy. On some level, this movie aspires to blend elements of comic
books, film noir, and satire into a singular approach—but since the elements clash with each other, and since the movie compounds this problem with
dissonant flavors like amateurish supporting players and goofy music, the end
result is an odyssey into inexplicable weirdness.

Richard Harris, adorned with
a strange Prince Valiant haircut and gigantic eyeglasses, plays Harry Crown, a
hit man hired by gangster Uncle Frank Kelly (Edmund O’Brien) to settle a turf
war in some unnamed American city. Uncle Frank wants Harry to rub out goons in
the employ of Uncle Frank’s rival, Big Eddie (Bradford Dillman). Meanwhile,
Harry is trying to build a life with saintly schoolteacher Buffy (played by
vapid model-turned-actress Ann Turkel, Harris’ real-life companion at the
time). Also mixed into the storyline are Tony (David Hall), a junior-level
crook whom Harry adopts as a sort of apprentice, and Baby (Kathy Baumann),
Tony’s voluptuous young girlfriend.

Frankenheimer treats the whole movie like a
comic strip, so gangsters wear stylized outfits—think pinstriped suits and
wide-brimmed hats—while Harry brandishes a pair of matching pistols with pearl
handles. The setting is a city seemingly populated only by warring gangsters,
so gunfights and murders take place in plain sight, and violent scenes are
“ironically” scored with upbeat music and cheerful whistling. Everything in 99 and 44/100% Dead is overwrought in
the clumsiest way, so the tone of the picture is captured by a scene in which
Harry’s arch-enemy torments Baby.

The villain of the piece is hit man Marvin
“Claw” Zuckerman (Chuck Connors), who is missing a hand and therefore carries
around a briefcase filled with bizarre prosthetic attachments. Arriving in town
and demanding a sexual plaything, Marvin is furnished with Baby, who wears a
barely-there yellow dress so sheer her nipples seem as if they’re trying to
achieve liftoff. While Baby watches, Marvin affixes whips and other prosthetics
to his stump, scowling and threatening Baby with cartoonish dialogue. And so it
goes from there—take the standard elements of a crime film, jack them up on
crank, and you’ve got this very strange moment in the career of one of action
cinema’s greatest directors. 99 and
44/100% Dead isn’t Frankenheimer’s oddest film—that honor belongs to 1996’s
insane The Island of Dr. Moreau—but
it’s close.